Normal People
At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers — one they are determined to conceal.
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.
Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.
Author: Sally Rooney | Publisher: Hogarth Press
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Rating: 5 / 5
“Her eyes fill up with tears again and she closes them. Even in memory she will find this moment unbearably intense, and she's aware of this now, while it's happening. She has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person. But now she has a new life, of which this is the first moment, and even after many years have passed she will still think: Yes, that was it, the beginning of my life.”
Much has been written about the literary genius that is Sally Rooney. Her ability to use words to cut, soothe, emote, build, break, etc etc etc is incredible, and it’s no wonder she’s become a modern classic in and of herself. This was actually my first of her books, but it won’t be the last. Normal People was just as wonderful as everyone says it is.
The story follows two main characters from high school through college and into young adulthood. Marianne, in high school, is a free-thinking, severely introverted outcast with a wealthy but toxic family. Connell is a well-liked but somewhat reserved athlete whose mother is Marianne’s family’s house cleaner. They are drawn together magnetically, but (to be frank, and excuse my expletive) Connell really fucks it all up. At college, surrounded by wealthy, privileged students, the tables turn and it is Marianne who is well-liked and Connell who is socially alone.
They continue to crash into and away from one another as the years go by. Throughout, we learn about their deepest hearts. And it’s hard to explain beyond that — just, their deepest hearts. Their wounds, their trauma, their desperation, and their humanity. And tbh, I may never recover. I kind of hope I don’t.
Sally Rooney, with one book, has become an auto-buy author for me. She’s that good.